Reviews by JxSxPx

The cinema is filled with collaborations between directors and their handsome proxies reuniting and exploring, if not refining, their individual and collective images. Behold the collaboration between director John Frankenheimer, one of cinema’s most sensitively masculine directors, and star Burt Lancaster. Their collaboration began with 1961’s The Young Savages and continued with 1962’s Birdman of Alcatraz after the original director, Charles Crichton, was fired by Lancaster.

What Frankenheimer and Lancaster manage to bring to this story of prison reform is a certain soulfulness and poetic ambition to highlight the need for prison reform. However, the portrait of Robert Stroud is, how shall we put it, incredibly selective and revisionist. This over-long film creates a portrait of a wounded soul that is imprisoned for reasons that feel too heavily outweighed by his likability, charm, and quiet dignity.

The real Stroud was, as former inmate Glenn Williams described him, “was not a sweetheart; he was a vicious killer.” He was described as a man that thrived on chaos and violence, but you wouldn’t know that from Lancaster’s sorrowful and visually precise performance or the script’s near hagiographic depiction of him. It all becomes a bit uncomfortable to watch as Lancaster’s convicted killer becomes just a misunderstood loner with an affinity for his birds.

Frankenheimer frequently got career defining performances from his actors, think of Angela Lansbury’s monster mother in The Manchurian Candidate, Rock Hudson’s shifting identity in Seconds, or the entire ensemble of this film. For all the narrative faults of this film, there’s the simple joy of watching great actors deliver great work. Thelma Ritter’s distinction as one of her era’s greatest character actresses is underlined by how deeply committed she is as Stroud’s desperate mother. Karl Malden, Edmond O’Brien, Betty Field, and Telly Savalas, especially him, provide unique and diverse color as various supporting players.

Yet Birdman belongs entirely to Lancaster. He had two standard operating modes: action/adventure and more carefully modulated dramatics. He is clearly in the secondary mode here as even during a prison riot he acts a sage presence. Lancaster keeps our attention throughout numerous scenes of him alone in a prison cell interacting only with the birds. It’s one of the towering achievements of his career, even if the wider film left me with an odd aftertaste.

Anatole Litvak finally does something with his camera besides plop it down and film his actors as though they were performing on a stage. He pushes it into star Barbara Stanwyck’s face so we can count every drop of sweat that forms across her brow and upper lip while she lies in bed and frantically uses the phone. It’s far more engaging than it sounds, as Stanwyck was one of the greatest film artists of all-time.

However, Sorry, Wrong Number is betrayed by its radio origins by struggling to not only sustain the tension but pad out the running time. We get a flashback to how Stanwyck met husband Burt Lancaster and stole him from Ann Richards, and the sexual dynamo of Stanwyck gets a chance to shine. Otherwise, the normally controlled, naturalistic actress gives one of her biggest, brashest, near Brechtian performances. It’s as though she watched Susan Hayward and Joan Crawford poach the women’s pictures parts and thought she could do them one better.

Given that she’s Barbara Stanwyck, she can. We are almost repelled by not only the largeness of her performance but her character’s hysteria and near emotional abuse. The eventual reveal of her character as potentially faking her illness or being a victim of psychosomatic disorders almost rehabilitates her.

Normally, these stories reorient that world that the bad guys get punished and order is restored. Given that film noir, of which this is either is or adjacent enough towards to qualify, operates in a world of perpetual smoke and moral grays, we typically end up with the bad guys winning and the worst guys losing. Even under the heavy hand of the Hays Code, film noir bucked the convention. Never mind Stanwyck’s carnal charge and hard living bucking the code. Sorry, Wrong Number gets a downbeat so bleak that I ended nearly loving the film in a profound way. Not even the code could tame Stanwyck.   

Iron-jawed Burt Lancaster plays a tortured prisoner aching to get out to reunite with his ailing wife (Ann Blyth). We understand and sympathize with him, but not just with him but all the men in his cell block. When they riot against the despotic guard (Hume Cronyn), we understand their motivating factors as we have spent plenty of time with them.

A touch manipulative, sure, especially as so many of their infractions seem so small in the grand scheme, and that is the main problem with Brute Force. What seemed shocking, even daring, in 1947 now appears outdated. If, as Jules Dassin argues, prisons reflect the wider society, and that’s a valid argument to make, then American society has a rot at its core. Nobody ever escapes, as one character argues, and the entire thing is wrapped up in a salaciously violent, and noir-esque bleakness, bow.

It is a weird, unshapely film that combines bits of jailbreak, social expose, film noir, and political allegory. In trying to shove all these various bits and pieces together, Brute Force winds up being entirely pleasing. Certain sections engaged me far more than others. Yes, the violent denouement had me on the edge of my seat and completely engaged, while parts involving Cronyn’s Napoleonic guard seemed so over-the-top (despite his committed performance) that I found myself taken out of the narrative. Through it all is Lancaster giving a soulful and deeply grounded performance that will make you rethink his iconography as a preeminent square-jawed tough guy of cinema.    

Film noir is dependent upon a palpable sense of atmosphere, of a world going to rot, covered in grim and thick with smoke. There’s a sense of erotic energy and danger, often intertwined, and everyone seems morally pliable, if not bankrupt or seeking salvation. What separates the best from the merely competent is how these various pieces are deployed and the heightened dialog enveloping them.

I Walk Alone has a rudimentary plot, one that occasionally gets bogged down with incident that feels improbable, and conventional payoff. Byron Haskin smartly populates the film with a stellar ensemble of actors, future legends on the cusp of superstardom or genre-defining actors doing their thing, but it is obvious that he’s spent time away and only recently comeback as a director. There’s something perpetually ‘off’ as if all the pieces are there but can’t seem to put together correctly.

The plot concerns two former bootleggers (Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas) who reunite after one of them does a jail stint and the other starts a successful nightclub. They made a bargain years before that they would hold half the profits for the other should this exact scenario happen, which is the first instance where the plot starts to strain credulity. Why would a professed criminal keep his word to his fall guy buddy?

Lancaster is cast as the tough brute while Douglas is the silken tongue mastermind. It’s interesting but I wonder if their screen presences would’ve been better suited in swapping roles. Douglas isn’t bad as the gentlemanly gangster, yet he was best when allowed to simmer and explode. He never explodes here. Lancaster’s gentlemanly side was something that largely went underdeveloped. He was so often cast as brutes, con men, or soulful criminals that a change of pace would’ve been nice to see. They’re both fine with what they’ve been given but there was room for more.

Anyway, there’s also Lizabeth Scott as the woman stuck in-between the two men. Her role is a canned kept woman who falls for the guy she’s supposed to be scamming, but Scott invests a certain vulnerability and tremulous warmth that salvages the part. Her tough sensuality, not unlike that of Lauren Bacall, tips I Walk Alone into a less paint-by-noir experience.     

If you had a story set during the Great Depression in a sleepy, dusty little town suitable for the conning by a charlatan and the spinster daughter ripe for a sexual awakening by the same, who would you cast in those roles? Well, if we’re talking about the studio era of films, then the answers would clearly be Burt Lancaster and Katharine Hepburn. Lancaster was most potent when his athleticism and panther-like carnality were funneled into charismatic snakes, and Hepburn did a string of spinster roles throughout the 50s that she became nearly synonymous with these parts.

The Rainmaker is one of numerous stage play transposed to the big screen with a mere substitution of players. Gone are the stage veterans and in their place an assembly of movie stars and character types. Director Joseph Anthony doesn’t give any visual oomph and merely plants his camera to largely view his characters in medium shots. You half expect a proscenium arch to appear on the edges of the frame to really sell the effect of a filmed play.

Which means a lot of the heavy lifting is left to Lancaster and Hepburn, both of whom are solid if unremarkable here. Hepburn is, at least, twenty-years too old for this part and appears more like the matron of the family rather than the oldest sister and only daughter. Still, she gives her performance a stubborn likeability and never judges her character’s ambitions as too small. Her reading examines how badly this woman wants to be loved for who she is, demands it even, and provides tiny glimpses of vulnerability under the steely exterior.

While Lancaster uses his whole body to sell the role. One of cinema’s most physical actors, Lancaster is often bounding, or continuing movements throughout his entire body. He knew that the camera could catch little bodily movements as intricately as a tone of voice or facial expression, and he brings that to his performance. His carriage and posture say just as much about his character as his line readings, if not more. He emerges as a cock of the walk from the first frame and nearly develops a conscience, or something close to it, by the end.

The Rainmaker doesn’t add up to much and it is largely a minor work in the legacies of Hepburn and Lancaster, but it is enjoyable if turgid. With actors this magnetic and fiery how could it not be? They would play these types of roles better in other films, Elmer Gantry and Summertime to be specific, but I’ll be damned if that climatic scene in the rain doesn’t work every time.

If there’s any completely realized and executed masterpiece in Danny Kaye’s filmography it is 1956’s The Court Jester. Not only is it a goof on the Errol Flynn medieval swashbucklers but it maintains a perfect balance of the songs, narrative, comedic bits, and characters to build something spectacular. The Court Jester is just a smart, fun blast from beginning to end.

The gag here is that Kaye’s bumbling rebel is involved in a web of intrigue and political maneuvering. Seemingly every single person in the king’s court has some secret motivation and they all think Kaye is the spy working for their side. You can see the pieces of Robin Hood, fairy tale maidens, and tropes sprinkled throughout and played for broad laughs. It all works in concert and the references are smart.

It helps that reliable players like Basil Rathbone (Sir Guy to Flynn’s Robin Hood), Mildred Natwick (Flynn’s costar in Against All Flags), Glynis Johns, and Angela Lansbury provide color to the proceedings. Johns is the captain of the Black Fox’s forces, basically this film’s spoof of Robin Hood and the Merry Men, while Lansbury is the princess who dreams of a gallant suitor and happily ever after. These two engage in comic flirtations with Kaye and provide some hilarious bits of tongue-twisting jokes.

There’s also the sight of Kaye’s hapless jester getting lost in a sea of knights moving in lockstep and elaborate geometric patterns. While Kaye never breaks character here, this does provide him with a launchpad to pull faces and go manic. If the older films said “narrative and structure be damned” then The Court Jester is a clear signal that the building blocks laid down by Walter Mitty have built gorgeous architecture.

It's nearly impossible to run through all the peaks of The Court Jester as it is expertly done. I mean, I haven’t even talked about “the pellet with the poison” bit, which is justifiably famous, or the joust or the ending that lampoons birthright monarchy by installing an infant on the throne. Hell, this film jettisons Rathbone by launching him into the sea with a catapult. Now that’s comedy, right there.

I suppose your mileage may vary depending on how you respond to Kaye. But I found The Court Jester an instant charmer from the time of “Outfox the Fox” and continued to be charmed until the very end when he revealed the infant’s birthmark and everyone in the court bowed down to their rightful king. There’s just something magical, whimsical, and lovable about this loony little movie.  

A musical-comedy remake of Ball of Fire from Howard Hawks, A Song Is Born is a film that I probably enjoyed more than the average viewer. By no stretch of the imagination is it an improvement on the original, or even a worthy successor, but it is harmlessly entertaining. And it is fascinating to watch Hawks literally try to transform his actors into the original performers.

Unlike Alfred Hitchcock who proclaimed his 1956 remake of The Man Who Knew Too Much the superior film, Hawks dogged A Song Is Born until the very end. To be entirely honest, Hawks admitted to only taking the work for the paycheck and had essentially checked out of the proceedings. “I never thought anything in that picture was funny. It was an altogether horrible experience.” Hawks’ consensus opinion on the film is the majority view, and I understand why.

Kaye was going through a contentious separation from his wife, Sylvia Fine. Fine was largely responsible for writing his songs, and she refused to participate on the grounds that he had left her for Eve Arden. Kaye and Fine would eventually reconcile, but A Song Is Born is fascinating to watch because Kaye cannot hide behind his song-and-dance man background. He must play a character and he brought a level neurosis to the part that is dynamic and interesting to watch.

Virginia Mayo doesn’t fare better as Hawks requires her to merely mimic Barbara Stanwyck’s iconic work. Mayo was much better as brazen hussies in films like White Heat and The Best Years of Our Lives than she was as the timid good girls of her earlier Kaye films, but she’s not a tough dame. Where Stanwyck brought a core of steel and near volcanic sexuality to her part, Mayo seems like a young girl playing dress-up throughout.

So why on earth did I enjoy this one so much? It’s nearly impossible to entirely screw up Billy Wilder and Thomas Moore’s story. It’s a solidly constructed riff on the story of Snow White, and it is fun to see Tommy Dorsey and Louis Armstrong, for instance, guest star. It’s also fascinating to watch as something of a noble failure, and god knows how much I enjoy watching those.

Here is the film where Danny Kaye’s career begins to transition away from near shapeless excuses for his typical bag of tricks and towards something that gives him more character and structure. While The Secret Life of Walter Mitty still finds plenty of time, a bit too much in my estimation, to hit pause and provide leeway for lunacy, it also adds a strongly defined character that keeps Kaye in a more interesting performative mode. He must find a way to make his fantastical bits work within the confines of a character, and he manages to do that splendidly.

Where Walter Mitty gets into trouble is in Virginia Mayo and Boris Karloff’s subplot involving the mild-mannered Kaye wandering into a theist thriller. It doesn’t entirely jive with James Thurber’s original text, a paean to middle-class wish fulfillment and yearning. These bits feel like the studio demanding a stricter adherence to basic movie structure and payoff instead of just letting the thing breathe.

We get the full range of Kaye’s talents here, such as Kaye imaging himself as a French hat designer with a deep misogynistic streak or a RAF pilot. These exaggerated archetypes still contain a recognizable Walter buried underneath their exterior bravado. It’s a joy to watch Kaye’s skills develop up to this point and the films form a better structure instead of just strung together bits. While The Secret Life of Walter Mitty still has some problems with halting the narrative for excess, it’s the most satisfying film up to this point in Kaye’s career.  

The Kid from Brooklyn casts Danny Kaye as a meek milkman who somehow becomes a boxer. That’s it, that’s the entire premise of this one. Many of the usual parts are here again, Vera-Ellen, Virginia Mayo, the Goldwyn Girls, songs and dances, bits of slapstick comedy. It’s pure Kaye formula by this point, which is maybe not the worst thing.

Plenty of movie stars had formulas built around their image, so why should Kaye be any different. The Marx Brothers always brought a bit of anarchy to various high society and monied arenas, Gene Kelly always put in an extended dream ballet, and Greta Garbo was always emotionally suffering, if not dying. It’s the variations on these images and themes that mark what films are best remembered and which are cast aside.

The Kid from Brooklyn’s lone new wrinkle is Eve Arden’s tart tongue, which adds some much-needed punch to these featherweight exercises. Otherwise, this one stalls a bit too much to add in these cliché bits. For Kaye’s superfans only.  

Danny Kaye pulls double-duty in Wonder Man playing twins, one a nebbish type and the other a nightclub sensation that runs afoul of some gangsters. The ghost of the extrovert possesses the nerd and causes all sorts of shenanigans along the way. Of course, there’s a love triangle adject plotline involving Virginia Mayo, Kaye’s frequent object of affection, and Vera-Ellen. If Up in Arms was thin but entertaining, then Wonder Man is just thin. It’s as though they just told Kaye to go manic in his performance and left it at that. This is just as messy a movie as several of his Samuel Goldwyn films of the era, lots of grinding the plot to a halt to throw out the Goldwyn Girls or have Kaye do one of his patter-songs, but there’s a relative lack of buoyancy here. It’s fine but nothing more.